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James Taylor Lines Up 2018 Dates With Bonnie Raitt
Charles Reagan Hackleman / Charles Reagan Studios – James Taylor
James Taylor plays the Harvey Can’t Mess With Texas benefit concert at Frank Erwin Center in Austin Sept. 22.
James Taylor is steamrolling his way through the U.S. with his All-Star Band and special guest Bonnie Raitt.
Taylor and Raitt already rocked on the road together in 2017, celebrating their “decades-long friendship,” according to a press release, and apparently the whole thing was so nice they had to do it twice.
The new dates start May 8 at Veterans Memorial Arena in Jacksonville, Fla., and move through the Regional South (Florida, Missouri), into Denver’s Fiddler’s Green Amphitheatre May 27, followed by the Southwest (Arizona and California), then Portland, Ore., and the Midwest (Minnesota, Michigan, Wisconsin and Ohio). The last show currently on the books is KeyBank Center in Buffalo, N.Y., July 1.
The routing includes a double-header at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles May 31 and June 1.
Additional dates are being promised in the Carolinas, Oklahoma, various Midwestern cities and Seattle.
Tickets for all the currently announced shows go on sale Jan. 19 at 10 a.m., except Minnesota which goes on sale Jan. 20 at 10 a.m.
Prior to this tour Taylor had one other gig previously announced, “The Gala Celebration” with John Legend and Jim Belushi at Times Union Center in Albany, N.Y., Jan. 26. Raitt’s next play is March 15 at City National Civic in San Jose, Calif., with Jon Cleary, followed by a run of California shows throughout the month.
Taylor’s latest project was Before This World, released in 2015. Raitt put out Dig In Deep in 2016 and put out a playlist titled: “The Best Of The Warner Bros. Years” later the same year.
Of the two artists’ tour last year, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution wrote: “For these two musical storytellers to share a bill is a special occurrence, and even though their … appearance at
Taylor was pretty good about reporting that tour to Pollstar, and a tour history reveals he and Raitt sold out plenty of rooms in the 8,000 to 9,500 range last year, including KFC Yum! Center in Louisville, Ky., and PPG Paints Arena in Pittsburgh. They left some empty seats in bigger houses, like Blossom Music Center in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, but most wouldn’t call 11,174 tickets sold a stiff.
In some markets like Boston and San Francisco the team of Taylor and Raitt seemed capable of filling baseball stadiums, but most other regions saw ticket sales in the 8,000- to- 12,000 range.
Like so many others, Taylor is clearly thinking global as he also hit South America and Australia in 2017.
You can see the full upcoming routing for James Taylor and Bonnie Raitt’s on their respective Pollstar artist pages.